Page:Merry tricks of Leper the taylor.pdf/16

(16) laziness and cursed ill nature; for always when she began to curl her nose for the future, the taylor had no more to say, but Maggy, Maggy mind the bottle.

Leper was working with a master taylor in Glasgow, who hungered his men, and one morning when breakfast was set on the table, in comes a gentleman to try on a suit of clothes the master being obliged to rise, desired the lads to say the grace themselves; every one refused it, and put it to his neighbur, till Leper undertook it, and said with an audible voice, that the stranger gentleman might overhear him as follows: “Och, hoch! we are a parcel of boor beastly bodies, and as beastly minded, if we do not work we get nothing to eat, yet we are always fretting, singing, and half starving is like to be our fortune, scartings and scrapings is the most of our mouthfuls: we would fain thank thee for our fulness, if it were so, but the rest of our benefactors are not worthy the acknowledging ;-hey Amen." The gentleman laughed till his sides were like to burst, and gave Leper half-a-crown to drink.

Leper was not long done with his apprenticeship till he set up for himself,